Is Online Gambling Legal If Bitcoins, Not Dollars, Are At Stake?: With no government ties, Bitcoin is used to bu...

Enlarge image i An image depicts the SatoshiDice website, which exclusively uses Bitcoin, not dollars, for gambling. NPR An image depicts the SatoshiDice website, which exclusively uses Bitcoin, not dollars, for gambling. NPR With no government ties, Bitcoin is used to buy everything from blogging services to Brooklyn-made cupcakes. Theoretically, millions of dollars are being kept in the digital currency, and it's increasingly being used by specialized online gambling websites. But is Bitcoin gambling legal? Purely in the interests of journalism, I decided to get my hands on some of the currency. When I did so, Bitcoin , which has been around for a few years now, was fetching around $17 on most exchange sites. It has since risen to more than $20. It turns out that it's really easy for someone to give you Bitcoin, but it's less easy to just buy them from a third party. I e...